Urals Street Artists Mock Officials With Caricatures

VkontakteThe caricatures of Alexander Yakob and Yevgeny Porunov, which appeared on Yekaterinburg streets overnight.

Street artists in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg sketched caricatures of city and regional officials around potholes to draw attention to the poor state of local roads, a news report said Monday.

The caricatures of Alexander Yakob, head of the city administration, Mayor Yevgeny Porunov and Sverdlovsk Governor Yevgeny Kuivashev appeared overnight on some of the city's central streets, Urals news agency Ura.ru reported.

In pictures posted to social-networking site Vkontakte, the officials' black-and-white faces appear alongside what appear to be quotations from past speeches.

Kuivashev, for instance, has the phrase "Reconstructing the roads is our main task" written in stenciled white letters below his chin, while Porunov promises to finish repairing the city's roads by April 2012.

Yekaterinburg is often criticized for the poor upkeep of its roads, and local officials have repeatedly promised upgrading the road surface, according to Ura.ru.

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